Little Men, Big World Page 13

  Then Reisman took him up. Tapped again. Always the same.

  Downy’s first contacts with the real world floored him. At twenty-five he was still in a state of confusion, and his stint in the 17th Ward had unsettled him further. He hated the thought of going back to it.

  “… Well, maybe you can suggest somebody,” said Reisman, eyeing the boy shrewdly.

  Downy came out of his haze at once. “No, Ben. I’ll go back if you want me to. Perfectly willing if I can help.”

  “All right. It’s on the q.t. Dorsey moves into sports where you flopped, understand?”

  Downy stared. “Flopped? Oh yes. I see.”

  “It’s just a reason for you going back. That Pavlik’s a shrewd character. Give him the narcotics routine again. Take him aside. You know. Confide in him.” Reisman laughed. “Tell the rest of ’em nothing. Make ’em think you’re deeply hurt.”

  Downy was beginning to show eagerness now. “What do I look for?”

  “I don’t know. But here’s a couple of tips. Keep tabs on Dysen. The Front couldn’t run without him. Keep tabs on Arky. Only lead I got.”

  Downy nodded slowly, then went on eating. “The town’s roaring, I hear,” he said, “since Stark left. It’s common talk.”

  “Yeah,” said Reisman; then he turned to a waiter and ordered some Polish sausage. “If I suffer, I suffer,” he said to Downy, who was laughing.

  At Dysen’s insistence, Arky had Zand drive him out to Locust Grove to talk to the Captain face to face. The Captain was getting nervous about talking over the phone, and Arky did not want to put in another appearance at the station house—might cause comment. They were to meet at a filling-station on the outskirts of Locust Grove. The station had closed for the night and was deserted. A faint bluish-white light burned inside. Beyond, the highway curved off over a hill into open country. A gentle breeze stirred the tall trees; the moon was up over the fields, showing them dimly; crickets chirped on all sides. At a farm beyond the low hill a dog barked from time to time.

  Waiting for the Captain, Arky sat listening to the night sounds. “Almost like home,” he said to Zand. “Ought to get out in the country more, away from them hot bricks.”

  “I’ll take the hot bricks, you take the country,” said Zand. “It makes me nervous. Too damn quiet.”

  “Noisiest place in the world, a farm,” said Arky. “Damn roosters start crowing at midnight. City people think they crow at dawn. Some kind of noise all night long.”

  “I’ll take streetcars and buses and taxicabs,” said Zand. “And I’ll take carbon monoxide to manure.”

  “Well ... it’s all in what you like,” said Arky, mildly. Sometimes Arky irritated Zand so that the little Syrian had an almost irresistible impulse to get into a fight with him. Always the country. Always Arkansas. Always the city stunk. But here he was just the same, and had been for maybe twenty years. “If you’re so set up about the country,” said Zand, “why don’t you go back? What’s holding you?”

  “Never had guts enough to work a farm,” said Arky. “Wanted it easy. Do nothing. Lie in bed. All the rest of the family had the guts.”

  “That’s silly talk. You got more guts than any guy I ever met.”

  “No,” said Arky. “I only got the easy kind. I ain’t got the kind it takes to keep slugging no matter what happens. Tough, raising crops. One bad year and you can get wiped out. You’re bucking the weather, and what can you do about the weather? People always making fun of farmers. Why? I never been able to figure out. Takes guts, hard work. Wasn’t for the farmers, these goddamn silly jerks here in this big town wouldn’t eat. Wouldn’t even drink, for that matter. Takes crops of some kind to make liquor and beer.”

  “Yeah,” said Zand, his mood changing, “never thought about it that way before.”

  “Suppose all the farmers said the hell with it. It’s too tough and a low-profit business to boot. Suppose they said we’re tired; from now on we just raise enough for our own use. Goodbye, boys. Everybody but them starves to death. Money wouldn’t mean a thing. Here’s a guy with a million bucks in the bank, a house in Riverview, six servants, and a Cadillac car ... but no food ... what’s he going to do?

  “Look at it this way. Some lucky character invents some jerky thing that don’t amount to nothing. People would get along okay without it. But it’s a novelty. So what happens? This character gets rich—he’s a millionaire. All right. He was smart. He put something on the market that wasn’t there before. But it don’t matter one way or another whether it is or no, nobody’ll die for it. Now take the farmer. If you haven’t got food, you haven’t got nothing. You’re dead. Ever hear of a farmer making a million dollars? Rock-bottom essential and yet ninety per cent of ’em just barely make the grade. And people in cities think they’re funny. Is that cock-eyed, or ain’t it?

  “All this crap about the laboring man—all of ’em overpaid now and pampered. Strikes all over the place. Suppose the farmers went on strike. Talk about a nation-wide tie-up, brother. Would make a national railroad strike look like a picnic. They’d be begging them on their knees before they were through…”

  “Jesus, Arky,” said Zand, amazed. “You ought to run for Congress.”

  Arky restrained himself with some difficulty from going on; finally he laughed and said: “Yeah, sound like a Philadelphia lawyer. But sometimes I get Goddamned fed up with all the bunk I got to listen to here—from people who don’t know what the hell they’re talking about.”

  The Captain looked very weary, his big face sagging more than usual. He had driven out by himself in a little Ford coupé and he had to squeeze out of it as if taking off a glove. He loomed huge in the dim light from the filling-station.

  “I got to call a halt, Arky,” he said. “Too many people are getting on to it.”

  “How do you mean, Captain?”

  “Well ... we contacted the hired police out there. They’re co-operating, though they don’t know what it’s all about. We’ve picked up quite a few suspicious characters, nothing to do with our problems, just nuts, Peeping Toms, you know—but the hired police are beginning to ask too many questions. A guy from headquarters buzzed us, but one of the boys happened to know him well and told him to keep still. I just don’t like it, Arky. Things are quiet. You know that.”

  “Yeah,” said Arky, “maybe too quiet. But I don’t like putting you on the spot any longer, and no use to talk to the Mover.” He thought for a moment, then went on. “Tell you what, Captain. Let’s finish out the week. Okay?”

  “All right, Arky,” said the Captain, then he gave a long sigh. “It’ll sure be a relief to me to get this over with, especially when I think you’re barking up the wrong tree. Nobody would have nerve enough to tackle the Mover.”

  “Maybe not, maybe not,” said Arky. “Okay. We’ll finish out the week.”

  The Captain nodded, waved good-night, squeezed painfully back into the Ford, and drove off toward the twinkling lights of the little suburb, Locust Grove.

  “Pretty good guy, the Officer,” said Arky thoughtfully. “The thing is, he knows the Mover personally. If a guy knows the Mover personally, he’s for him a hundred per cent. Would have been better if Leon and the Mover had got acquainted; then Leon wouldn’t have been so anxious to play horse. Let’s go home, Zand.”

  They drove in silence for a long time toward the faraway smoky-red glow of the city lights. Finally Zand asked: “How’s the kid coming? How’s Orv? I ain’t seen him for a week.”

  “Swell,” said Arky. “Beginning to notice things—look you right in the eye. Makes me feel kinda uneasy.”

  11

  IT WAS one a.m., a dry west wind was blowing, and the reaches of Paxton Square and the 17th Ward, both on the west bank of the river, were like an oven. The sidewalks, streets, and buildings were still warm to the touch. Dust, dry as powder, blew along the gutters and rose in tiny whirlwinds; stray newspapers, scraped over the asphalt with a sound as of dead leaves. In the brick tenements all the window
s were wide open, and dirty curtains were bellying out and flapping. Downy left the hothouse atmosphere of the station and stood out in front talking to a couple of fat, tired, shirt-sleeved coppers. Downy wanted to take a walk along the river and try to get a breath of fresh air, but he decided it was not a very good idea. Only the night before a drunk had been beaten to death and robbed at the foot of Pier Street, less than three blocks from the police station. Downy shuddered at the memory of the bloody, contorted, scarecrow-like figure lying on the pavement with all his pockets turned inside out. “Must’ve got a quick buck fifty out of him,” a big copper had said sadly, shaking his head over the wickedness of this world, of which in fifteen years on the force he had seen plenty.

  Downy took off his coat and folded it carefully over his arm; then he got out his cigarettes and he and the cops lit up.

  Far off down the street, on the edge of Paxton Square, the clock at the fire house struck one solemnly.

  Downy sighed and puffed on his cigarette. The grave-yard watch now. Reisman’s idea. Joe Pavlik was on it too, now. Had he been told to keep an eye on Downy? Downy laughed. Joe was snoring in a tipped-back chair by the sergeant’s desk.

  For crime, the district couldn’t be matched in the city; and it all happened at night. But it was dull, sordid, penny-ante —worth no more than a line or two. Of course the Front was nearby, where a big story might break at any time—but it never seemed to. Downy sighed again, then flipped his cigarette out into the street.

  The cops talked baseball, ignoring the antediluvian world about them. Downy chimed in from time to time. After all, hadn’t he been on the sports desk?

  Arky couldn’t sleep. Lying on his back in the darkness, he’d gone through every batting order in both major leagues, growing more and more wakeful as he worked, in a descending curve of interest, from the New York Yankees to the St. Louis Browns. It was no use. This was going to be one of the bad nights.

  The apartment was very quiet. Anna had been in bed for some time and for a moment he considered going back to her bedroom, waking her up, and making her talk to him. He had the jimmies and kept fidgeting about, unable to relax. If he could talk for half an hour or so the tension might leave him. But on second thought he changed his mind. Anna had looked sort of tired tonight, which was unusual for her. No wonder she looked tired, though; lugging that fat baby around all the time, bathing him, feeding him, giving him a sunbath, rocking him to sleep. “Why, hell,” Arky told himself, “he gets more care than a millionaire. Life of Riley for that baby.” At least he’d got so now that he missed his two o’clock feed, which meant that Anna could sleep straight through for six hours or so.

  “Let her sleep,” said Arky. “Hell, I don’t do nothing all day but watch chumps lose their money.”

  Finally, swearing quietly to himself, he got up, switched on a bridge lamp, sat down at a little table and laid out a game of solitaire. The room was hot and stuffy in spite of the blowing curtains, and Arky sat sweating under the light. Little by little he became preoccupied with his game. Time passed. The wind died and it grew a little cooler. Arky found himself yawning.

  “I’ll finish this one, then try the hay again,” he mumbled.

  But suddenly he jerked to attention. He’d heard something. But what? The stealthy slide of a foot on the roof just outside his window? The roof was covered with sanded tarpaper and a bird could hardly move about on it without making a noise. Arky listened intently, a slight chill going up and down his spine. Then finally he laughed to himself and mussed up his layout. He really had the jimmies, the fantods! The place for him was bed, sleep or no sleep.

  Just as he started to rise he heard the sound again. This time there was no mistake about it. With one swift movement Arky dove for the floor, taking the lamp with him. A sharp metallic click sounded outside his window, then a bullet whined through the room, and slammed into the hall door with a shrill, tearing sound.

  The light-bulb in the bridge-lamp had shattered on the floor and the room was in utter darkness. Arky lay waiting for another movement. Smart guy, using a silencer two blocks from the police station. Somebody had planned this out in pretty good shape. Leon? Could be. Though of course Leon would be sitting in a supper-club some place with a doll and a magnum of champagne, smiling at everybody, seen by everybody.

  Arky raised his head cautiously, but the window was almost as dark as the room and he could see nothing. Damn fool, sitting around with the windows open and the lights on with a roof just outside for somebody to crawl up on.

  Arky had an automatic in the night-table, but the night-table seemed a long way off at the moment. He waited. In the distance he could hear sirens, and a tug moaned on the river. But around him it was so quiet that it was almost as if he were walled in. Little by little a faint throbbing came to his ears, a throbbing which went on and on, and finally he knew what it was. A car in the side street with the motor running. The guy outside the window had friends. But they were really taking chances. If a prowl car went past, the coppers would comb them sure, as it was a cinch they were strangers to the neighborhood.

  Groping about, Arky’s hand came in contact with a book of matches. Raising up on one elbow with painful care and slowness, Arky tossed the matches toward the window. The book fit with a little plop, and Arky heard the quick shifting of a foot on the tarpaper roof, then ... nothing.

  Covered from below, this guy was patient.

  Arky decided to wait him out. The longer it went on the better chance Arky had to get the upper hand. A prowl might show up; anything might happen. But if Arky couldn’t restrain his impatience, if, in other words, he couldn’t keep his nerves steady, he was as good as on a slab.

  Arky groped cautiously about him for something else to throw and in a moment he found a few pieces of paper-thin glass from the broken light-bulb. Moving very slowly, he tossed the glass through the window. It was so still that he could hear a faint tinkle. But nothing happened. Not a sound.

  This guy was a professional, no humpty-dumpty: he had steady nerves.

  Arky lay still for a long time, then inch by inch, with long waits between each movement, he worked himself on his belly toward the night-table. It wasn’t that he thought he could open the drawer and get the gun out without being shot. That was too much to expect. All he wanted to do was to get close to the gun so he could get to it in a hurry, if there was a break of any kind. The minutes passed slowly. The wind rose fitfully from time to time, tossing the curtains. Arky was within six inches of the night-table when the phone began to ring.

  It rang and rang and rang, with a senseless persistence, startlingly loud in the unnatural stillness. Arky froze and lay cursing the phone to himself for a moment, then it occurred to him that the sudden ringing of the phone might have slightly unsettled the man outside the window, and he decided to take a chance on trying to ease the automatic out of the night-table. He slid his hand up for it inch by inch, and his fingertips were just touching the drawer when he heard the quick thump of footsteps in the hallway—Anna, no doubt, awakened by the phone and hurrying to his room in her bare feet. Flattening himself on the floor, he shouted:

  “Anna! Anna! Don’t come on!”

  There was a sharp click, then the tearing whistle of a high-caliber bullet, which buried itself in the floor near Arky, splintering the wood.

  The bedroom door was flung back and Anna stood silhouetted against the dim night-light in the hallway.

  “Arky!” she screamed. “What…?”

  The man outside fired three more shots, the bullets whistling and shrieking as they tore through the room, one of them ricocheting from some metal object with a sharp ringing and a high-pitched wail as of the damned.

  Arky felt something rip through his scalp, then, blind with fury, he jumped to his feet, grabbed the automatic out of the drawer, knocking over the night-table, and rushed to the window. A dark figure was just disappearing over the edge of the roof. Gritting his teeth, Arky fired repeatedly at a shoulder, then an
arm, then a slowly disappearing hand.

  Below, there was the loud clatter of some heavy metal object falling. Then groans and cries, and somebody grunted: “Throw him in the back. Hurry—Jesus!”

  Arky jumped through the window, falling to his knees on the tarpaper roof, then, recovering, he rushed to the edge, but the car had already shot off like a projectile and was making for the intersection. Arky fired a futile shot after it, then he dropped his empty gun to the roof and fell to his knees, overcome by a sudden rush of nausea and dizziness.

  “What the hell’s that?” one fat shirt-sleeved copper cried. “The Battle of the Marne?”

  Downy and the other copper stared, open-mouthed, then without a word they turned quickly and began to run toward the sound. The other copper went back inside, yelled something to the sergeant, then came out again carrying his gun-belt and revolver, and puffed up the hill after the others, who had a big head-start on him.

  Lights were appearing all over Arky’s place now. Doors were banging; Lola screamed as she ran up the stairway in her nightgown, followed by Zand, who, gun in hand, was struggling to button his trousers on over his pajamas.

  The hall door was locked. Zand used his latchkey, cursing his awkwardness. Lola rushed in ahead of him, crying: “Anna! Anna!” Then she stopped stock-still and turned greenish.

  Zand came in, bewildered, and stood staring down in blank unbelief at Anna’s body lying in the dim-lit hallway.

  Inside, the phone went on ringing. But Zand was so badly shaken he could not bring himself to answer it. Moving cautiously into the dark bedroom, he switched on the overhead lights. Then he started violently. Arky, with blood on his face, was just climbing shakily back through the window.